


Mask and Mirror

by metisket



Category: D.Gray-man
Genre: 49th name, Gen, bookman is not amused, breakfast of champions, pay no attention to the man behind the eye patch, people-watching for profit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-08
Updated: 2012-12-08
Packaged: 2017-11-20 14:32:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/586403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/metisket/pseuds/metisket
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's Lavi's job to pay attention, so he pays attention. And if he often really enjoys his work...well, there's nothing wrong with that. Right?</p>
<p>Now with:<br/>An <a href="http://www.efpfanfic.net/viewstory.php?sid=520932&i=1">Italian translation</a> by <a href="http://youffie-17.livejournal.com/">youffie_17</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	Mask and Mirror

6:22, and I'm awake. I generally wake up between 6:15 and 6:30, which is just in time to catch Yuu training. Yuu invariably finishes training at 7:00, so that he can get to the dining hall before Allen does. Allen invariably shows up for breakfast at 7:17, always shower-fresh, presumably because he's also been training. He and Yuu are more alike than they know. Reliable as Immanuel Kant.

It's worth watching Yuu train because it's such a precise reflection of his mood. If he's recently back from a mission, watching him train is essentially the same as receiving a mission report. How many akuma, how many injured, how many dead? All there in the set of his shoulders and the savageness of his attacks.

I'll have to skip Yuu this morning, unfortunately.

Allen has been on a mission in Germany. He finished up three days ago, and given the distance (around 570 miles), the reliability and scheduling of the trains (dubious and eccentric, respectively), the vagaries of the Channel, and the fact that he can't help but stop and talk to strangers, I estimate he'll get in early this morning. Maybe as early as 6:45; almost certainly before Yuu.

There should be fireworks. It should be hilarious. I want to be sitting next to Allen when it happens.

That said, I don't want to attract the wrath myself, so I'm going to have to dress as subdued as Lavi can reasonably get. Don't-notice-me clothes: the most faded of the colorful bandannas (I am cheerful and harmless), Order uniform rather than street clothes (I am one of you), and the hair brushed to hide the eye-patch (there is nothing mysterious or sinister about me at all). As to the personality, maybe Lavi can have a hangover this morning. That might be wise. Keep quiet, don't get cut to pieces, and enjoy the show.

I walk into the dining hall at 6:52, and Allen’s already stationed behind his mountain of food. Perfect. Johnny is across from him, watching him eat with the standard expression of fascinated horror, and that's good too. Johnny wanders down to breakfast anywhere between 6:30 and 9:00, when he makes it at all. He'd have been sorry to miss this.

I fetch my usual bowl of cereal, squeeze between Johnny and the wall, and settle in to wait for Yuu. Johnny says good morning, and I flinch and squint. Don't bother Lavi, Johnny. Can't you see he's hungover?

6:55, and the finders start trickling in. From the look of them, the French are still ticked at the Brits, and the Germans are still ticked at everybody. Such a microcosm, the finders.

7:00, and Yuu's on his way. Reever staggers in, looking like all the coffee in the world isn't going to keep him upright for more than another hour, poor bastard.

7:03, and Yuu has _arrived_. He approaches Jerry. He requests tea, bacon and eggs, and marmite on toast. It's what he requests every morning, because there are times when he’s absurdly British. Anyway, no one can eat soba three meals a day. Jerry replies...

That Yuu will have to wait, because someone has to go buy more eggs, because Allen Walker has, once again, eaten them all.

Johnny, hearing this, cringes and starts to edge away from Allen. Allen himself is oblivious right up until the moment Yuu seizes him by the collar and hauls him backwards off the bench.

Their fights are a thing of beauty; practically choreographed. They run from disgusting eating habits to hypocrisy to ineptitude to name calling to threatening the hair. A pattern so familiar it doesn't even upset the finders anymore. Soothing as cider in the fall.

Not to mention _completely hilarious_.

After they've wound themselves down, they settle side by side, bickering aimlessly over whether it's unsanitary for Yuu to accept eggs from Allen's plate. Johnny scoots cautiously back to his position across from them. I'm trying not to smirk; that would blow Lavi's hangover cover.

The only thing that could have made that more satisfying would have been an appearance by Lenalee, but she rarely makes it to breakfast before 8:30. Lenalee would have given Yuu that _look_. The one that says, "All those years I tried to make you act civilized, have they really come to nothing?" It's always quickly followed by the other look, the one that says, "Well, at least hurting you will make me feel better."

Lavi is head-over-heels in love with Lenalee, and sometimes I worry that I'm not far behind him. It's easy for Lavi; he's in love with every woman he meets. I don't have that luxury.

It's not a worry I'm eager to share with Panda. Not when we're three breaths away from war, anyway.

"Are you okay, Lavi?"

Apparently fretting has made me look even worse than I meant to, and now I've attracted Allen's attention, which was the last thing I wanted. I really need to stop letting Lavi wear my face.

"Fine, Allen. Just a headache."

Johnny snorts, and I _will_ remember this the next time _he's_ hungover. Lavi will have his revenge.

"Oh," Allen, the local expert on hangovers, says dubiously. "Did it wake you up? You came to breakfast early."

At this, Yuu's head snaps up, and I know I'm doomed.

"You _came_ to watch the beansprout _steal my food_ ," Yuu accuses.

The thing is, Yuu would never have noticed and Allen would never have suspected. When they use their disturbing two-person hive mind, though, they see right through me. It's another thing Panda wouldn't like, if I’d ever mentioned it.

Right now, though, I've got bigger problems. Namely that I need to get out of here before Yuu remembers that he has Mugen and tries to kill me with it.

"Well, Yuu, I knew it would be pretty damn funny."

Yes, I think I'd better address that death-by-colleague problem by getting up right now and running like hell.

I'll take the rest as it comes.

**Author's Note:**

> First posted July 2008.


End file.
